Bike bounding box Fix it, repair it, how do I do it, what's the best part to use, and now: how do I get there?

[ksep]

Fuck .

[gsbarnes]

For the record, I never went on the Tuesday ride to Mountlake Terrace, so I don't know how far they went. I just remember calling Bill Turner from South Park and giving up after he said they were in Brier or something.

Clearly we need to ride to Edmonds to forestall any future arguments.

[tehschkott]

It was bald white guy night, and we were all about to get our asses whipped. Good times!

[limpyweta]

A tuesday ride went to smokin' , but as a noob in this context maybe one would add something for Tuesday rides? The descent to Lake Forest Park was fun.

[gsbarnes]

[kalen]

[MikeOD]

[caustic meatloaf]

You could always do the more eastern portions of the RedSpoke route - they cover some "farm country" portions of the NE part of the state.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&m . ab7a6b2066

That shows their entire 5 day route. Days 3 and 4 are from Lincoln Park to Davenport, with the options of visiting Coulee City on one loop, and way the hell up to Fort Spokane near where the Spokane River meets up with Lake Roosevelt.

[the dreaded ben]

i have nothing clever to say about this.
feels pretty weak though. my midwestern version is way better.

[Alex]

[limpyweta]

[gsbarnes]

[gsbarnes]

One of my crazier goals for my 50th birthday (in 2015) is to extend my bike bounding box by 50 miles in each direction. To recap, my current box:

N: Deception Pass (round trip), just north of Bow on Chuckanut Drive (one way)
E: Fall City (round trip and one way)
S: Puyallup (round trip), PDX (one way)
W: somewhere near Coupeville on Whidbey (round trip), just west of Chehalis (one way)

I'll accept a 50 mile improvement on either the round trip or one way bounds, since I don't have all the time in the world. Here's my sloppy plan:

North: Ride RSVP (one way). This doesn't quite make it, but a short trip the next/same day up into North Vancouver will do.

East: Iron Horse trail to Ellensburg will do it. If I'm really lazy I'll just have the wife drop me off there and thus get mostly a downhill ride back into Seattle.

South: The choices are a round trip just south of Winlock (for reference, about 1 mile south of exit 63 on I-5), or a one-way trip 50 miles south of Portland (which is between Salem and Albany). Salem and Albany are both stops on the Amtrak Cascades, so that would work, but so would a 2 day round trip (camping at Lewis and Clark State Park) or 3 day round trip (camping, uh, at Millersylvania? twice?). The Bremerton Ferry might figure in this trip, whether I go to Winlock or Albany.

West: Luckily there are still 50 miles left to the west. There are 3 basic places to go: south of the Olympics, North of the Olympics, or Vancouver Island. If they let you take your bike on the Clipper, this is easy, as I just have to get to French Beach Provincial Park on the South Coast (a little west of that if I want to do it one way, but I don't see how I would get back...) Anyone ever biked this way?

South of the Olympics, it's Aberdeen if I go round trip or Ocean Shores one way. This seems doable if I ferry to Bremerton or Southworth.

North of the Olympics seems the better idea if the Clipper doesn't work. The west end of Lake Crescent is more than far enough if I go round trip, or about 5 miles past that one way. Who's taken the Olympic Adventure Trail? I don't want to compete with the logging trucks on the south side of Lake Crescent.

Anyway, there's 4 long bike rides I want to take sometime in the next couple of years. Anyone have any advice or want to join me? Apart from RSVP this year, I don't have any definite plans for these.

[ethan]

North: Fort Ebey State Park
West: Ruby Beach
South/East: Ipsut Creek Campground, Mt. Rainier

Those were all round trips... counting one-ways, I went a tad farther east, up the North Fork Snoqualmie (BC VIII).

[Dravis Bixel]

I have done almost of the Iron Horse west of Ellensburg. (I had to skip about 15 miles between Thorp and Cle Ellum. That meant riding 20 miles on hilly back country highways with no shoulders. I guess now you just have to sign a release to go through those two tunnels.) It is a really fun route, but isn't very technical which can get a bit blah-blah at times. This is made worse if you are heading West as you tend to get a headwind. It gets really annoying after a while. Personally I would go East to have the wind at your back. Yes it is up hill to the pass, but that isn't terrible. Once you get through the Snoqualmie Tunnel it is flat or downhill with the wind behind you. That feels amazing. Lake Easton is also kind of a nice spot to go swimming on a hot day.

[axel]

[blasdelf]

The restriction to trips starting or ending within city limits cut it down to this:

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit? . 6Xns-WxBX4

restricting it to round trips would cut out the points east of Monte Cristo but leave everything else

[limpyweta]

[Drain]

Almost some thread necromancy right here.

[likesWhiteChicks Kevin]

Here's mine (all one way):

North: Cordata Station, Bellingham
South: Bayou Black Drive, 2 Miles south of Houma, Louisana
East: Old Point Bar, Algiers, New Orleans, Louisiana
West: Dungeness Forks Campground, On BC9

[gsbarnes]

New one way north bound: N 49 20.046, in North Vancouver, BC, a few miles up the Capilano River Trail from the Lion's Gate Bridge.

I decided to do RSVP (Seattle to Vancouver) this year, and finished on Saturday. When researching it, I realized it ends about 47 miles north of my previous bound, so I decided to make it an even 50. Through Stanley Park, over the Lion's Gate Bridge and up the Capilano River Trail seemed to be the easiest way to do it, even if it wasn't directly north (I think shorter routes would have involved a steep hill climb; North Vancouver is not flat).

As for RSVP, much better than STP, although they release everyone at roughly the same time and the first stretch is up the BGT, so there's a lot of clumping and commuters heading the other way, making it hard to get past said clumping. If I did it again, I'd take Lake City Way and meet up the BGT in Lake Forest Park, as the clumping had mostly disappeared by then.

They've completed the 'missing link' of the Centennial Trail south of downtown Arlington. That's nice. Chuckanut Drive is cool, and not too hard if you're in shape.

At the end of the first day, I lost my wallet. Got a Facebook friend in Bellingham to buy me dinner, otherwise I would have had to have Pop Tarts for supper. And then while I was packing up I found it under a pile of clean clothes. Oops.

On Saturday, I was doing fine until I noticed up by Fort Langley BC that both tires seemed a little lumpy. On the second time I stopped, I noticed the tread was peeling away on the back tire. Turned around and luckily Fort Langley has a bike shop that sold me a new pair of tires (I already suspected the front one was getting old). Just outside of Fort Langley I spent a little time getting semi-rad on the Fort to Fort Trail on a curve of the Fraser River. By the time I got back on route, most everyone had passed me by.

Made it to the finish by 4:30pm and had a shitty wine instead of a shittier beer at the 'party'. Apart from the tires and my bike computer failing, everything was fine. I biked up to North Vancouver Sunday morning to complete the trip north.

A++ Would ride again, except probably without the Cascade sponsored ride part. And the Capilano River Trail seems worth exploring some more.

Photos:

[Charcharodon Megladon]

[gsbarnes]

[gsbarnes]

Extended my eastern bound (one way) by about 62 miles by biking to Ellensburg this weekend --- my previous record was the end of the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail, which I did round trip to about W 121 51.051 (just across the river from the falls where the trail dead ends.

New eastern boundary is near CWU in Ellensburg at W 120 32.121

I occasionally bike on the weekends with some guys who are older than me. Heck, older than Professor Dave. They had a plan to go to Cle Elum, which I extended to Ellensburg by taking a Cle Elum hotel room for one night. They semi-bailed at the last minute, but they did bike up to Hyak on the east side of the Snoqualmie Tunnel before they turned around, which meant my solo riding was all downhill and mostly with the wind at my back. When I got to Cle Elum, I was pretty tired. I ate a big BBQ dinner at Smokey's, which is right on the trail in South Cle Elum at the old railroad depot (and may be the best food for miles around - remember it next time you're going over the pass). Then I basically checked into my hotel room, bought some beverages at a nearby mini mart, and vegged out in my hotel room watching sports.

Sunday I took a short detour to Roslyn (3 miles in the wrong direction), then went back to Cle Elum and continued on the Iron Horse Trail to Ellensburg. Up to Hyak, the trail is nice, then it gets even nicer east of Stampede Pass Road, as it hasn't been re-graveled in a while but there isn't much traffic. So it's basically a nice dirt forest road that no vehicles ever take. But once you get to Lake Easton, the gravelling starts again and it rapidly gets annoying. It got bad enough east of Cle Elum that I bailed off the trail to Lower Peoh Point Road, which parallels it for a while, but then had to get onto the trail for a stretch that follows the Yakima River on the south bank. Torrey says Highway 10 on the north bank is nice, but this trail stretch is super nice - lots of trees for the most part, the river, pretty good trail conditions and next to no one else (I did see one mountain biker). Note: there are no legal campsites on this stretch but it's hard to see how you'd be caught if you tried to stay there overnight.

Once the trail got near Thorp, it crossed a few roads and became super gravelly again. I got off it at Highway 97, which is about as soon as you can, and took 97 then 10 into Ellensburg. My wife picked me up there Sunday afternoon.

A few notes:

The Coal Mines Trail from Cle Elum to Roslyn exists but has a lot of gravel. If you don't enjoy sliding around in gravel, just take the road.

The Iron Horse Trail is like a superhighway to recreation for bikers - you pass by all the trails south of I-90 on the way up to the Pass (except you're already a few hundred feet up), then once you hit Hyak, you have all of I-90 at your disposal: Salmon La Sac, Lake Keechelus, the Yakima Canyon, Teanaway, Blewett Pass if you want to go there. And the price is basically 1500 feet of climbing from Cedar Falls in 20+ miles. Definitely something to consider if you want to do a bike tour east of the Cascades.

I took my road bike with my standard 28mm tires and didn't have a problem, up to a point. If you're going much past Easton, I'd use a mountain bike to handle the gravel better. I was also carrying only a handlebar bag (one advantage of staying at a hotel).

The Iron Horse Trail has restrooms in lots of places, as well as camping up to Lake Easton, but then facilities become scarce. If you want running water, it's available at Cedar Falls (the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, run by Seattle Public Utilities, so it has the *best* water), Hyak, Lake Easton State Park, and otherwise at town stops like Cle Elum, Thorp and Ellensburg. Best to fill up your water bottles while you have the chance.

Despite the supposed Mountains to Sound Greenway, there isn't a good path up to Cedar Falls along I-90 --- you can get to Preston pretty easily on trails, but there is no good route from Preston (exit 22) to North Bend (exit 27). The group I was with was in a hurry, so we took the freeway (legal east of Issaquah), from the east end of Issaquah to exit 31. The freeway is vaguely safe, but super loud, dangerous at the exits, and full of debris on the shoulder where you bike. Plus generally unpleasant. Here are my thoughts on alternatives:

If you live farther north (like I do), get out to Redmond however you like (BGT to Lake Sammamish Trail, or just take a bus to the Redmond Transit Center), then take 202 (Redmond-Fall City Road) to Fall City and find your way onto the Snoqualmie Valley Trail, which ends right where the Iron Horse Trail begins at Cedar Falls.

If you have to take I-90, you can consider taking a bus to North Bend. If you want to bike it the whole way, getting to Preston via the Issaquah-Preston Trail is obvious. Then you could take the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail to Lake Alice Road and backstreets to Snoqualmie Ridge down to the SVT. But this involves taking your bike up these switchbacks:



(However, do note that the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail is paved, except near the switchbacks).

Honestly, I'd just get to Preston, then take the freeway to exit 27 (North Bend Way/Snoqualmie Casino) or 31 (202/N Bend Blvd). The uphill grind from exit 22 to 25 is pretty unpleasant, but once you're there, it's all downhill. North Bend Way seems like a nice downhill into downtown North Bend, where you can find the SVT, or just go downhill on the freeway to exit 31, which is a few blocks from downtown.

Photos: